Becoming South Australian: Sub-national government and humanitarian migrant perspectives on settlement and belonging

Refugees and asylum seekers are almost invariably framed as a problem in academic, policy and public discourses (Agier, 2010; Haddad, 2008; Nyers, 2005). They are “the ‘wretched of the earth’, forced from their home countries and dependent on the goodwill of receiving countries” (McMaster, 2001, p. 8). Although wealthy countries host only a relatively small share of humanitarian migrants (UNHCR , 2019), they have struggled to "find the right balance between the obligation to protect those who seek asylum within their borders, and the desire to protect these borders against unwanted strangers who might pose a threat to social, economic and/or political stability. Australia is a case in point despite being a nation of immigrants with a successful history of settling refugees (Crock, Saul, & Dastyari, 2006). In the past two decades, Australia has attracted attention mainly for its restrictive policies designed to block access to protection and externalise migration control through excising part of its territory from immigration law and outsourcing detention and processing of asylum seekers to poorer neighbouring countries (Frelick, Keysel, & Podkul, 2016).